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Prosecutors say a 35-year-old homeless black man held a white man at gunpoint and demanded he apologize “for all the things white people did to black people” in the Seattle area Sunday, August 11.

People carrying firearms openly have racked up a significant number of settlements for police overstepping their bounds.  In this latest case, the city of Bellingham, Washington has agreed to pay $15,000. BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) - Lawyers say Bellingham has agreed to pay $15,000 to a man who was threatened by a police officer for wearing a holstered gun in a city park. The police officer pointed his gun at the citizen who was not breaking any law.   Second Amendment activists who exercise their rights are winning these cases by being scrupulously law abiding, polite, and recording their interactions....

YAKIMA COUNTY SHERIFF NEWS RELEASE -- On 08-11-2013 at about 0927 hours the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office was advised of a burglary in progress with a suspect being detained at a residence on McKinley Rd north of Progressive Rd. Upon law enforcement arrival, it was found that the suspect had been shot. The 16 year old male suspect from the Toppenish area was transported to a Yakima area hospital where he was subsequently transferred to Harborview Medical Center in serious condition with a single gunshot wound to the torso. The investigation has revealed to this point that the family was...

The King County Sheriff's Office confirmed Monday morning that a shooting occurred on a Metro bus in downtown Seattle. The suspect, who was shot by officers, is now in custody. The Seattle Police Department tweeted that the shooter fired at a Metro driver....

An estimated 8.5 million Americans will receive rebates from their health insurers this summer thanks to the Affordable Care Act, which says companies that fail to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on health care must refund the difference to consumers. Obama today touted the benefit as part of his mid-summer push ... The amount of the individual rebates varies widely by state and insurance company, depending on whether a consumer's insurer was in compliance with the law. The largest average rebates will be seen in Washington state, where 3,007 consumers will receive an average $512 this summer. In...

A decorated Air Force veteran pleaded not guilty this morning to a charge of “trespassing with a weapon capable of producing bodily harm,” after being arrested by police in Vancouver, Washington, for legally open carrying an AR-15 rifle. Last Saturday, Mack Worley, eager to exercise his second amendment, open carried his rifle while grabbing a soda and viewing a fireworks stand before attempting to walk back to his car. “No one had said anything negative to me. A few people came up to me and asked a few questions about what I was doing and I just explained that I...

They came from across the state, from Bellingham to Vancouver, converging over the weekend on the Puyallup fairgrounds, to sign copies of Initiative 591 and get blanks to take back home, where they will have neighbors, friends and local gun shops fill up the sheets; a grassroots army stirred to action by the fear of Seattle-based big money buying away their gun rights. There is little doubt among WAC members and gun show visitors that Washington may be a “test case.” That is, they are convinced that well-financed sponsors of a competing initiative expect to use their experience here to...

A would-be burglar was stopped in his tracks by a Spokane Valley homeowner armed with a 12-gauge shotgun who said he's had enough with thieves on his property. Homeowner Chris Malloy saw a man walk behind his shed around 9:15 Tuesday morning in the 13600 block of E. 20th. It's the third time something like this has happened to him in three months and he's sick of it. "I was in the house, walked past one of the bedroom windows and just saw him walking across the golf course, the yard, then I knew something was not right," Malloy said....

Hot on the heels of Friday’s Seattle Times revelation about anti-gun Mayor Mike McGinn’s error-ridden gun buy-back, a newspaper in Pennsylvania yesterday published a lengthy piece on the poor track record of such events, with particular focus on Seattle. The Norristown Times Herald story picked apart Seattle’s first buy-back, concentrating on revelations about that exercise that were part of a 2004 report called “Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review” published by the National Academy of Sciences.“A Seattle, Wash., gun buy-back program in September 1992 that used $50 bank vouchers was evaluated with police reports during the six-month period after the...

Note: The following SNIPPET is a quote: Joint Terrorism Task Force in Seattle Launches Rewards for Justice Campaign FBI and Department of State Seek Information from the Public FBI Seattle June 04, 2013 The Puget Sound Joint Terrorism Task Force (PSJTTF) this week launched in Seattle a publicity campaign for the U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program. RFJ offers up to $25 million for information that helps stop terrorism. Over the next several months, the greater Seattle community will see photos of wanted terrorists and appeals for information about them publicized on highway billboards, airport displays, bus...

Dori thinks it should be legal to use deadly force to protect your property, but Spokane prosecutors disagree. They announced Wednesday that they are charging Gail Gerlach, who shot and killed a carjacker, with First Degree Manslaughter. According to reports, 56-year-old Gail Herbert Gerlach had left his Chevy Suburban running in his driveway to warm it up on a cold day in March when Brendon Kaluza-Graham tried to drive away with it. Gail fired his gun, hitting Brendon in the head and killing him. Gail said he saw Brendon raise his arm in his direction; he thought Brendon had a...

The owner of a medical marijuana shop in the 600 block of West Garland Avenue fired a shot at an armed robber fleeing the store Monday evening. “We can’t find any indication that anyone was hit,” Spokane police Lt. Bill Drollinger said. Herbal Connections is just two doors down from Garland Tattoo and Piercing, where D.J. Nill works. “I heard something that sounded like a gunshot,” he said. But the robber ran off in the other direction, and employees didn’t see anything, he said. “We didn’t realize what was going on until the cops came up,” fellow employee Larry Shepar...

NORTH BEND, Wash. (AP) — As her husband fought with an intruder in their home early Monday, a woman grabbed a knife and stabbed the stranger to death, investigators said.

Three accused people smugglers now face federal hostage-taking charges after they were caught holding Washington-bound immigrants for ransom, a Homeland Security Investigations spokesman announced Thursday. Federal investigators contend Espiridion Pablo-Madrigal, 34, Abel Donce de la Torre-Gonzalez, 32, and Luis Bretado-Aragon, 19, are accused of holding three immigrants hostage in a “drop house” in Phoenix, Ariz. A department spokesman said the kidnappers threatened to kill their hostages if the victims’ family didn’t pay. Homeland Security Investigations agents learned of the house on May 13, after a caller contacted HSI Seattle to report the kidnapping. HSI agents in Phoenix then worked around...

NORTH BEND, Wash. — The King County Sheriff's Office is investigating a home invasion near North Bend in which a woman came to the aid of her husband and fatally stabbed an intruder. Deputies were called to the home in the 10100 block of 420 Avenue Southeast around 1:40 a.m. after receiving 911 calls in reference to a home invasion. King County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindi West said a man was at a home where he lived with his wife, daughter and mother-in-law when his dog began barking. He went to check on his dog and found a man standing in...

It has been clear for decades that those who wish to restore Second Amendment rights have the facts on their side. Note this comment by NOFAN in Crosscut, an apparently left-leaning publication in Washington State. What is obvious is something that I have observed repeatedly: If an honest person looks at the facts about "gun control" they either become neutral or pro-Second Amendment. A person cannot be anti-Second Amendment, informed, and honest, all at the same time, unless they become an honest totalitarian, which is self-defeating and therefore, inconsequential. Of course, as George Orwell noted, statists are particularly good at...

Washington state firearms owners will learn Monday morning what kind of fight they will have on their hands when a group calling itself the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility – which sounds increasingly like “gun registration” – reveals its political plans. Meanwhile, some folks on the Seattle Guns forum are looking at a different initiative effort, and they're already working on it. This would be called the Firearms Freedom Act of 2013.And there are also concerns about whether background checks might collide with patient privacy under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).According to the Everett Herald and Seattle...

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — Police said a man shot and killed by officers in Federal Way first shot and killed his girlfriend and then fatally shot three men at an apartment complex. Investigators said they believe the series of slayings began with a domestic violence incident in which the man first fatally shot his girlfriend in the head at their shared apartment in the complex. He then left their apartment armed with a shotgun. Once outside the apartment he encountered two men. Police said he shot both of them. The resident of another apartment in the building, a 62-year-old man,...

PUYALLUP, Wash. — A manager at the Victoria’s Secret store at South Hill Mall was injured Saturday morning while trying to stop three women from stealing bras. KIRO 7 Eyewitness News partner the Tacoma News Tribune reported the incident happened around 11:30 a.m.. According to police, three women entered the store and scooped up 150 bras estimated at $8,000. The manager followed the women and tried to stop them outside of the store’s entrance, but all three women attacked her. Police said two of the women punched the manager in the face. The manager was also sprayed with an unknown...

In the incident Monday a man who returned home and found two intruders shot and killed one with a shotgun. The homeowner also fired at the second suspect as he fled in the stolen SUV, shooting out a window.